Good to see friends but I'm glad to be home

[Green Aura]

I've just been for my semi-regular visit to friends and family down south and have come back not knowing whether I've changed enormously or they have.

One stopping point found a friend filling a skip with topsoil because they have ground elder. I think by the time they've got rid of it all they'll have to buy more. We have ground elder too but view it as free food!

At another stopover I found my car being filled with various odds and sods they were going to chuck out - a beautiful soft wool car blanket, several new box files, a brand new Brabantia bin (they had 3!), a lovely lamp, a water cooler - I had to turn down other things because I couldn't get them in the car.

As it was my only "holiday" for two years I had a bit of a spending spree - some new jeans, a dwarf peach tree (reduced to a fiver) and some splendid looking chilli plants - we didn't grow any this year, and finally 3 x 2l Kilner jars,which I thought were pretty good value at a fiver each. I didn't see anything else I wanted to buy.

It was lovely to see everyone but I found myself feeling like I was totally out of step with everyone around me. So I'm very glad to be home - it may be longer than two years before I venture off again.

[Odsox]

Can't beat it can you ?
Returning home that is, after a trip into the material world.

I'm very pleased to say that I haven't ventured up the M4 for 6 years, although I feel something is probably imminent. Goodness knows what I will make of my relatives when I do have to go, being amused by them using Morrisons as their larder, popping in sometimes twice a day.
But it is good to see how the other half lives as it makes you appreciate your own chosen way of life even more.

Just had dinner watching the dolphins in the bay stirring up mackerel for the gannets to dive bomb. You don't get that in Hastings.

[Milims]

Please can you ask your friends to adopt us? Glad you had a lovely time, but gladder you're happy with life the way you live it!

[prison break fan]

Green Aura, can you please tell me more about ground elder as food? I would love to view it as other than a garden scourge!! Thankyou in advance! pbf.

[Green Aura]

I use it, mainly in the spring, as a spinach substitute - just the new tips. It's really nice in omelettes, pancakes and stuff like that. I don't eat it as a straight veg, too aniseedy for me, but chopped and added to things it's lovely.

Later in the year I keep chopping it back to stop it flowering and it seems to stay in one place without being too invasive.

[prison break fan]

Thankyou for that, I shall give it a go in the spring! Anything for free, that's me! Our house is known locally as "dumpitere" pbf.